


Know Your Enemy

by Sheeana



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: M/M, Mass Effect 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 14:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8331805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/pseuds/Sheeana
Summary: John Shepard and Garrus Vakarian - a romance in the making.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vaultfox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaultfox/gifts).



"You any good?" Shepard asks slyly. He leans back against the wall in the battery in that determinedly casual pose that he's perfected, and that's the exact moment when Garrus knows he's a goner. He'd been rattling off a tale about sparring and _reach_ and _flexibility_ and _blowing off steam_ that he figures could pass for idle banter between friends, if... well. 

Oh, he'd deny if it anyone asked. Hey, Vakarian, ever had any inappropriate thoughts about your commanding officer? How about your best friend? Your _human_ best friend? You ever think about how _taut_ his shoulders are when he's about to take a shot? How his eyes go dark when he's staring down an enemy? How your hands wouldn't even begin to fit around his hips?

But the thing is, no one's going to ask him something like that. There's only one person who would ever ask him anything like that, and, well- 

Shut the hell up, Shepard, he'd say, and then he'd have a clever quip and they'd make their way across the battlefield trading jokes and counting shots and the galaxy would keep on spinning around the black hole at its core.

Spirits willing, that conversation is never happening.

Until suddenly it is.

"In hand-to-hand? Not bad," Garrus says nonchalantly, like he doesn't know fifteen ways to incapacitate an opponent in under ten seconds. 

"Yeah?" The sly tone in Shepard's voice has suddenly become a sly glint in his eyes. "They say I'm not bad either. You ever feel like blowing off some steam, Vakarian, you just let me know." The expression on Shepard's face then is a strange one, even though Garrus has no idea what it means. It's not bravado, not anymore. He might call it nervousness, if Shepard wasn't still smiling.

"I, uh. I-" He coughs. "I didn't know- that you were- that you'd ever considered-" He's nearly mumbling, almost incoherent. Then he realizes that he's getting this all wrong. Shepard is just asking for a sparring match; the innuendo is unintentional if it exists at all outside Garrus's imagination. Maybe Shepard didn't even understand what Garrus meant when he was taking about _reach_ and _flexibility_. Suddenly he remembers that some humans have very clearly defined preferences, and a scarred vigilante turian might not fall under Shepard's. He squares his shoulders, ready to try to bring them back to somewhere normal again.

And then Shepard throws him off balance again. "You didn't think I'd considered sparring with a turian?" he says casually, and raises his eyebrows as far as they'll go.

"Sparring with this turian," Garrus says.

"I'm sure there are a lot of things you don't know about me, Vakarian."

That hits home. There are a lot of things Garrus doesn't know - and not just about Shepard. About humans in general. Things he'll need to know if this is actually going somewhere, if he's not just going crazy or dreaming this or wildly misinterpreting every word coming out of Shepard's mouth. He knows just enough about human anatomy to know that humans and turians are similar, but not that similar. He's aware that there are some _differences_.

"I can do some... research," he says, before his brain catches up to stop him, and even though he's still not a hundred percent sure that Shepard is even offering what he thinks he's offering.

"Research." Shepard's lips are doing that thing - that quirking thing that means he's trying not to laugh.

"Know your enemy." Garrus somehow manages a serious expression and a tone to match.

"All right," Shepard says, taking a step closer as if to see if Garrus will give way. He doesn't; he stands his ground, even when Shepard leans in and brushes rough fingers against his exposed wrist. It's exactly like Shepard and also exactly unlike anything he's ever done, both at the same time. "Do your _research_. Then come to my quarters after lights out, and we'll see."

Then he walks away, without another word. For the first time in a long time, Garrus is left speechless. And unprepared. And flustered.

And determined to do his research, extranet search history be damned.

\---

So that's how, two weeks and several more excruciatingly awkward conversations later, he finds himself standing in front of Shepard's cabin, two bottles in hand, wearing civvies and wondering what the hell he's doing with his life. (He's been wondering that for awhile, actually, but every time Shepard walks into the room, that inner voice telling him he's a mess suddenly becomes an inner voice telling him to forget about the odds and take that impossible shot, consequences be damned. It's a confusing mess, but since when isn't he?)

Armed with the newly acquired knowledge that human sexuality is somehow more diverse than every other species in the galaxy put together, he's almost feeling ready. He's also feeling woefully unprepared at the same time. He swallows and works his mandibles, trying to find something like steadiness. He's setting his sights low, because there's no way he's going to achieve smoothness.

"Keep it together, Vakarian. You asked for this," he mutters. It's been awhile since he talked to himself. Not since Omega and staring death right in the face, trying to keep himself awake and alert against the mercenaries waiting to claim him the moment he slipped. This isn't exactly the same situation, but with the way his heart is beating, right now it seems close enough.

After what feels like several eternities of shifting back and forth on his feet, Shepard opens the door. For a moment, Garrus can't read his expression at all. He's been getting better at it since he started spending most of his time with a human, but at the end of the day - human faces are still so alien to him. But then Shepard breaks into a grin and everything lightens, so Garrus gathers what remains of his courage and steps into Shepard's private quarters like this is something he does every day. Like it's normal to drop by for some light sparring and _tension relief_.

"Make yourself at home," Shepard says, gesturing around the room. 

"I brought drinks." Garrus holds out the smaller bottle awkwardly clutched in his hand. He'd spent a stupidly long time during their last visit to the Citadel selecting what he'd hoped was a palatable brand of human beer. He can tell immediately from the way Shepard grimaces and tries to hide it that he failed.

Despite Shepard's reaction, he still accepts the drink readily when Garrus holds it out. He even pops the cap. Then he raises it in a toast. "To trying new things?"

"To the great unknown." Garrus taps his bottle to Shepard's and then drinks, and for awhile they're quiet. Shepard manages to sip without making another face, but Garrus can tell it's an effort. "So this," he finally says, mustering the courage, "How are we-? I did some, ah, research-" he coughs, "-but outside of some very, very, _very_ niche publications..."

"We'll figure it out. It's us. We always do," Shepard says. His body language radiates confidence, but his tone is less sure.

Garrus takes a breath and figures that if Shepard can be brave, so can he. They step closer together, but it's all wrong. Turians just aren't built the same as humans. He's too tall, his limbs too long, too bony when he brings his hand up to rest on Shepard's elbow. When they lean in, his head bumps Shepard's too hard, and he nearly stumbles when Shepard steps on his foot. All that bravado evaporates in an instant as it hits him what he's _doing_ right now. What a bad idea it is. How everything is about to come crashing down on his head like it always does.

"... Damn," he mutters. He takes a step back. "Look, Shepard-"

"Garrus." Shepard's eyebrows are raised, the way they often are. There was a handbook at C-Sec that explained it as a gesture of defiance, but Garrus has seen that one on Shepard a hundred times. It's not the expression he's wearing right now. This is more - patient. Inquisitive. With a touch of concern, which Garrus finds oddly endearing.

"I'm just saying, this doesn't have to-"

Shepard cuts him off before he can say something he might regret. "You want to go, then go. I won't try to stop you, and it won't affect anything. The mission, our friendship- it's fine. Nothing changes because of this. But the past few weeks, I gave you every out I could think of, and you still came up here, which makes me think you want to be here as much as I wanted you to come."

"I just wanted... I don't know, Shepard." Garrus sighs. It's not quite the sound of hopelessness, but it's still weary, worn-down. "Everything I do goes wrong. I wanted something in my life to be good. Just one thing, one good thing. And no matter what this is, joining your crew is the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah, I want to be here. I just don't know if I what I want is ever _right_."

"Sit down," Shepard says, with the quiet firmness of someone who's used to being obeyed without question. He takes a seat and pats the couch beside him.

Turians always obey their commanding officers. Shepard is the most _commanding_ officer Garrus has ever met. 

After C-Sec, after Omega, Garrus can't exactly say he's the greatest turian who ever lived. There are probably convicted criminals who would place higher in the Hierarchy then he does right now. But he thinks about something he heard Shepard say once, and he twists it in his head - you can take the turian off Palaven, but you can't take the Hierarchy out of the turian. Shepard commands, and he itches to obey. Still, he hesitates for a moment before he does. Wouldn't want Shepard getting any ideas.

"Don't think." Shepard reaches out to lay a hand on Garrus's shoulder. It's intimate, friendly. It's the same gesture they've shared a hundred times. It's completely new territory for both of them. "Just do whatever you feel is right."

When Shepard leans over, Garrus still doesn't quite meet him the right way. There's a moment of hesitation. Then Shepard presses his mouth to Garrus's the way humans do, and their foreheads bump together like turians, and it should be awkward but suddenly it isn't. Suddenly they're right back where they always are - on exactly the same page, speaking exactly the same language without even using words. Shepard makes a move and Garrus spots him. Garrus takes a shot and Shepard follows up with some well-timed biotics. That's how this goes. Give and take, push and pull, and there's never a single second when Garrus does anything but trust Shepard completely. He doesn't know humans, barely understands how they can possibly make this work when their bodies and their backgrounds are so different, but he does know _Shepard_. He gives in.

He could leave when it's over, but he doesn't. The way they talked about this - blowing off steam, relieving tension. In his head, it doesn't sound like the kind of thing where he spends the night. But he stays where he is. It takes him awhile to find the right position, but he finally manages to arrange himself beside and around Shepard on the bed that's too big for a ship like this and too big for one person anywhere. As he cautiously slides his arm around Shepard's waist, he finds himself stifling laughter at the idea that this could be anything but serious. When it comes to Shepard, nothing is ever casual. All or nothing, do or die. Why would _this_ be any different?

It occurs to him then that he's never seen Shepard like this. He's seen furious, intimidating, injured, charming, exhausted, drunk, elated - but never intimate, vulnerable, sated. As if to assure himself that it's real, he reaches up to brush the back of his finger against Shepard's jaw.

"Go to sleep, Garrus," Shepard says. Not an order. Just a quiet complaint in the dark. "Worry about it later. Or don't, if this suicide mission turns out the way Lawson thinks it will." The way he says it leaves Garrus without a single doubt that they'll make it back, which is completely insane. It's been insane from day one. He's learned to live with impossibility being reality.

Shepard shifts and the equilibrium they found is suddenly thrown off. Garrus finds himself squirming to find the right way to lie on the bed together without stretching a muscle. They don't exactly fit together. Having seen Shepard staring down batarian warlords and sentient starships, he thinks he'd be forgiven for forgetting sometimes that Shepard is a lot shorter than he is. If they do this, if they even live long enough to try, it's never going to be easy.

But it's _right_. It's Shepard. It's the one thing in his life he can trust. Lying here, stars racing by above him, Shepard's arm a heavy weight against his side, Shepard's five fingers awkwardly slotted between his three, he could believe in anything.


End file.
